Foraging isn’t exactly on the cutting edge of modern business, but for Denton, a 36-year-old, guitar-playing, flannel-shirt-wearing former dental assistant who talks about things like “developing a relationship” with the forests and fields he travels, it’s a foundation of his livelihood.

The ridges and valleys of western Wisconsin, the northern woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula — even little pockets of Milwaukee — all yield the plants he seeks and, if he decides the time is right, selects for future use.

“I’m always foraging,” Denton said as he stood inside Tippecanoe Herbs, which he opened recently in Milwaukee's Walker’s Point neighborhood. “Sometimes I’m just not picking.”

For about four years, Denton sold herbs at farmers markets while holding down a day job at a dentist’s office. But with the business growing, he and his wife, Serena Marinelli, decided to plunge in full-time and open a shop at 321 W. National Ave.

It’s a cozy spot, with a gas fireplace, Oriental rugs on the tile floor and a turntable spinning vinyl from a collection that includes Loretta Lynn, Squeeze and early ‘60s R&B artists.

“We like the finer things, I guess — the old-fashioned ways,” Denton said. “Old-fashioned things seem to shine through nowadays.”

Denton’s path to herbalism began on W. St. Paul Ave. There, while riding his bicycle near the post office a little more than five years ago, he was struck by a car, caromed off the windshield and broke his right collarbone.

Happy with his results, Denton decided to study the field, enrolling at the now-closed Kanyakumari Ayurveda and Yoga Wellness Center, and realizing the first time he spoke in class that it had been one year earlier “to the exact minute” that the car had struck him.

“It was really strange,” he said.

Then came study of North American plants with established herbalist Jim McDonald in Michigan, and with others.

Along the way, Denton met Marinelli in her hometown, Bergamo, Italy.

Denton was touring Europe with his Fender Telecaster and his fellow members of well-regarded Milwaukee band Midwest Beat. Marinelli came to hear them. Romance followed. Two years ago, they married.

“It helps to have a guitar,” Denton said of his good fortune in love.

Denton gathers about a third of the herbs he sells. He finds plants such as sweet fern, wintergreen and St. John’s wort, along with various mushrooms. He buys other herbs from farms. He regularly uses about 150 different herbs and other ingredients, some as common as ginger or cinnamon.

U.S. sales of homeopathic and herbal remedies rose an estimated 28% from 2011 through 2016, according to Mintel Group Ltd., a Chicago-based market research firm. Mintel projects sales to continue trending upward.

However, while use of herbal supplements for health purposes is common, there is little regulation of them. Because the federal government considers them foods, they don’t have to pass the same testing and follow the same regulations as drugs.

On its website, Johns Hopkins Medicine, which includes the medical school of Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University and a group of hospitals, advises people to talk with their doctors before taking herbal supplements, warning that they “can interact with conventional medicines or have strong effects.”

Denton prepares his herbs in a commercial kitchen with a food-processing license from the State of Wisconsin, and labels them with a disclaimer that says the products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, that they aren’t intended to treat or prevent disease, and that people with concerns should consult their health-care professionals.

The FDA requires such disclaimers if the manufacturer is claiming a supplement is “intended to affect the structure or function of the body.”

Denton acknowledges that the line between herbalism and practicing medicine is murky. He talks with customers and advises them but said he doesn’t address problems that are beyond his depth.

“The line of questions that I have … gets down to a mundane level where I am not practicing medicine,” he said. “I’m just giving people advice and educating them on why it is that certain things work and why it is certain things don’t work.”